My Experience with Asthma and How I Got Healed

I never had a history of Asthma since I was a kid. I always
thought that if you didn't get it when you were young there is no way that you
can get it as an adult. I was wrong. I was so surprised and frustrated when I
was diagnosed with the ailment in 2007, I was 28. I couldn't understand how it
could happen.

I grew up in a small city, called Baguio, in the Philippines.
It's a city that (used to) boast of hills lush with (Pine) trees, wild
sunflowers and other kinds of florae. I remember growing up in a city with
clean air. I also grew up as an athletic kid participating in sports like
Karate, Judo and basketball. I grew up not having any respiratory or breathing
problems. And all my life it never occurred to me that being vulnerable to such
kind of ailments can ever happen.

Metro Manila

Eventually, I left the small city and moved to the big city,
Metro Manila, to go to university and then to work. It is not a secret,
although some may not want to admit it, but it would definitely be difficult to
hide, that Metro Manila has the worst air quality in the Philippines.
Ill-maintained vehicles carelessly ply the thoroughfares, arrogantly belching
thick black carbon monoxide-rich exhaust from their tail pipes.

Studies have and continue to show that Metro Manila's air
quality is below standards. Improvements have been recorded; unfortunately air
quality still registers to be below the acceptable standards.

I am certain that the city's polluted air is a factor that
causes people to develop Asthma. It is common knowledge, that air pollution is
the main culprit for the dramatic increase of respiratory ailments.

At the same period of time when I was diagnosed with Asthma, my
four year old daughter, coincidentally, was also diagnosed with it. Luckily her
case was not as worse as mine. She was prescribed pills she had to take every
day for a little over a month, and her Asthma was effectively controlled until
she could go back to normal and breathe on her own without medication.

In my case, I had to depend on Asthma pills, a disc inhaler and
another inhaler for attacks just for me to breathe. If I skipped medication even
for one day, the symptoms reoccur. My lungs and my throat would just constrict
and constantly choke me.

This made me think and find a common factor that could have
triggered our Asthma attacks at the same time, and why mine was worse than
hers. The period when we developed Asthma was actually a period when there was
a dengue scare in the Philippines. We resorted into using electronic mosquito
repellents to protect us from the insects. The repellent we used in our room at
night was always plugged in a socket nearest to my side of the bed. I figured
the device contributed to weakening my daughter's and my own respiratory health
because it was too much of a coincidence that our health suffered only when we
started using the device. Maybe, we didn't have enough ventilation in the room
and that made us breathe high levels of toxic air.

Symptoms of difficulty breathing, wheezing and uncontrollable
coughing, that continued even at night started to disturb our lives. Our bodies
were choking itself.

We decided to stop using the mosquito repellent devices, while
my daughter's Asthma symptoms eventually disappeared. Mine did not, I continued
to be dependent on three medications: Montiget tablets, Advair discus inhaler
for maintenance and a Ventolin inhaler for sudden attacks. I was spending
roughly about 10% of my monthly income for medication. And what's more
upsetting is that these medications were not for healing my condition, they
were only for controlling the symptoms. If I skipped them, I couldn't breathe.
My doctor said Asthma cannot be cured, it can only be managed.

A couple of times after taking the medication for several weeks
or so, I experimented skipping them to see if I could breathe on my own. And
several times, it failed. After a day or so, the symptoms came back. It was
very frustrating. I can`t believe that the medication I`m taking will be
equivalent to food and water for the rest of my life. It wasn`t only my body
that became weak, my psyche was being affected as well. How could I, somebody
who never smoked now be suffering from a respiratory ailment? It is so unfair.
How could He be so unfair?

Vancouver

One year passed, still with Asthma, an opportunity to
work in Canada came and I opted to grab it. One thing that got me worried is
the cost of my Asthma medication in Canada. So before departure I made sure I
bought as much as I can. My sister who is in Vancouver told me that I may
actually not need it because the air in Vancouver is clean. But I still made
sure I was ready, thinking of the possibility that it may not be that simple as
she thinks it is.

When I got to Vancouver, the first thing I noticed is how clean
the city air is and how amazing it is that forest parks are integrated into the
urban landscape. It was also unbelievable that vehicles did not blow out thick
black smoke from their tailpipes.

A few days in Vancouver, tried my experiment again, weaned
myself from medication. I experienced difficulty breathing and wheezing, but
surprisingly, it wasn`t as worse as when I tried it in Manila. A gleam of hope.
I continued to try to breathe on my own, tried to use medication only when it
was very difficult to take in air. I made sure I had regular walks, bike rides,
jogs in the forest park near my sister's apartment. I noticed slow but gradual
improvement in my non-medication-dependent breathing. My sister might be right
after all. Maybe it was just all about clean air. Is it really that simple? In my case, I found out it really is.

Forest in the City - Vancouver

I am now temporarily based in Calgary and it’s been a little over one and a half year now since I last took Asthma medication. One day, I was rummaging through my luggage when I found my unused inhaler. I noticed the expiration date. It's been expired for a few months already. I usually feel a sense of disappointment when I find things I bought and wasn't able to use before its expiration date. Definitely not in this case.

I really hope people in Manila will start changing their habits.
Everybody needs to do every little thing they can do to make sure that we bring
the quality of air into acceptable standards. This is not only the government's
responsibility. It is all our responsibility. My dream for Manila is for it to be like Vancouver or Singapore. My dream for Manila is for it to be a first class city. A city where progress and nature intertwine, making it into one of the top livable cities in the world. Let's make Manila a green city. Let's fight Asthma. Do not wait for you or people close to you to be its next
victim.

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Comments

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sending

Nombulelo

2 years ago

Am diagnosed with asthma year 2008 and till now I used ventolin inhaler and my asthma attacks me anytime and it stressed me a lot. Is there no other thing I may used to help asthma without the inhaler

violet

6 years ago

am a victim of asthma n always admitted whenever i have an attact can some one asist me to get rid of this

Toni Carter

6 years ago

Hi there I thought this was really helpful. I moved to Vietnam with my husband for his job last year, and at 41 suddenly developed Asthma. I currently have it under control with medication, but my story is similar to yours in the respect that I am struggling to wean off the medication. We are looking to move elsewhere and so I am optimistic that I can get off the medication eventually. Thankyou for your inspiration :)

lin

6 years ago

Stress..does it not also trigger asthma?

Shorea

7 years ago

Not everyone can relocate to areas with clean air. For those who are not as lucky, it may help to "green" your home.

Take care of plants inside your house to reduce indoor air pollution. Take care of plants outside your house to sort of "shield" your home from dust and other pollutants outside.

NASA has done a lot of research on plants that do precisely this, on what indoor plant will reduce what kind of air pollutant, etc. There's a lot of information online.

Here's to breathing a little easier.

beth811

8 years agofrom Pearl of the Orient Seas

There are many contributing factors to asthma and one is the kind of air we breathe. I'm happy to know that you now live in a city with clean air and your asthma has gone.

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